DOSE:

inhaled

Cannabis

(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

270 lb

Several months ago I started to smoke cannabis on a regular basis, something I had done several years before, but had to quit to save money. Anyway, one of my first times back on the pipe was actually with a Volcano Vaporizer. I had made a few new friends in a new town, and I was invited to a little smoking powwow at a guys house whose name was Mario. Now, normally I would preserve his anonymity by not providing his name, but it does come into play later.

The party was a really chill sort of event. None of the people were party smokers, they were artists. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was a lack of pipes, bongs, joints any of that stuff. I was thinking 'What are we to smoke with?'. Well, Mario had brought this heavy, electric cone which was a volcano vaporizer. I had never used a vaporizer, and thus didn't know anything about them. When he packed the first chamber and filled the bag, I thought that this was some kind of joke. When I took my first hit, all I could think about was a memory from when I was a kid, and I hung out in the grocery store getting stoned off the nitrous in easy cheese cans.

The initial effects were odd, I wasn't really baked, but I was getting a sort of fuzzy headache. I did at least five, or six more hits before I felt baked. At this point I was questioning the credibility of the people who swore by vaporizers as the best way to smoke. I can't quite remember the total of hits I took in the end, but Mario kept filling the chamber, and I kept hitting the bag long after people dropped off. Eventually it was just Mario and me, and I noticed he looked like hell. He looked totally fried. That's when it hit me just how stoned I was. I didn't feel like I was getting high because it didn't have the usual harshness of a normal pipe, it was just like breathing air. I tried to stand up and walk to the bathroom, but I had to crawl. I was way past my comfort level, and I was far from the peak of my experience.

In the bathroom I looked at my eyes, which were a pleasant shade of light pink. The red eye wasn't what made me look high though, it was my sunken eyes, and blank stare. I then did some light meditation in the bathroom (kinda strange, but the quietest part of the house). I turned my psyche into two parts, one that was on the trip and the other that was guiding my movements so I could function. When I walked out I took off my shoes and socks so I could feel the tacky shag carpet squish between my toes. Pure ecstasy. I was inspired to lay back on the carpet and take it in. As I did, a dozen little gnomes jumped out of their huts somewhere in my body and reupholstered my insides with the velvet they have on pool tables.

To truely experience pleasure, one must also experience pain. I've never been much of a masochist, but I was feeling somewhat philosphical, so I put on a kettle to make some yerba mate tea. (WARNING: The following is a VERY bad idea) When the kettle started to steam, it turned first into a fire breathing dragon, and then into a Dalek from Doctor Who (I didn't actually see them, I was thinking about what the kettle looked like, and as a result I thought I saw them). I picked the kettle up by the sides, the pain was excruciating, and poured four cups of mate before I decided to put the kettle down. About two seconds afterward the pain was replaced by a rush of relief that never went away the rest of the night.

[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]

Several minutes later I decided to go back to my dorm. Mario offered me a ride, my first instinct was to say 'No you idiot, you're high!'. Somehow I ended up in the back of his Isuzu Trooper II with one of my good friends, L. I totally forgot that she was the one who introduced me to Mario, and the reason she hasn't been mentioned up to this point is because I have no recollection of her being with me at the party. I remember the ride as the most terrifying experience of my life, not because of the drive itself, but because L kept poking me in the stomach, being a ticklish person normally, combined with the turns of the car which I perceived as violent fish tailing and swerves, it was a horrible experience. All I wanted to do was get out of the car, and at one point I tried to open the door and bail out, but being a dumb stoner I couldn't figure out the lock.

When we got back to the dorm, I was almost instantly back in my room. Where I picked up a rubber frog, a mountain dew, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Anyway, L, who doesn't smoke, and doesn't know what it's like to trip out, called me and forced me to watch the movie 'Saw' with her. I had seen the film before and thought it was a little scary, and now that I was baked, I dreaded watching it. Anyway, to cut a long story short the movie felt like it took forever, and at the end I realized that the movie wasn't scary at all. After that I was sitting in L's room, and I was reading Ovid - which was actually more scary than Saw because the words were tough to read baked - when I dropped into a trance, and went catatonic for a few minutes. It was completely unexpected, and I think it might have been a result of the techno that L habitually listens to. The trance itself is completely impossible to articulate, and half forgotten because L started to shake me because she thought I had passed out. This wasn't cool, I jumped to me feet, turned around, chucked the rubber frog at her and dove out of the room. I ran down the hall laughing, I felt like I'd just dished out justice. She disturbed me when I was in one of the most awesome experiences of my life, so I punished her by throwing a rubber frog at her.

At the end of the hall I sat on a bench and decided to lay on my back. A few minutes passed when an RA came by and saw me. I would normally have freaked out, but this particular RA was a notorious stoner, and I had even sold him some weed once. I was laying there looking at him, all of the bizarre cerebral things were gone. I was coming down, but still pretty stoned. I looked at him, waiting for him to speak. He then said 'Are you blazed?' to which I replied in a sarcastic tone 'Nooooo...' he asked 'Who'd you smoked with.' I told him the truth, and it couldn't have sounded more ridiculous 'Mario'. He laughed at that, he was thinking Super Mario, the iconic video game character. This threw me through a loop, I felt like a bad dog for no reason. I had actually smoked with a guy named Mario, and I could in no way express it without sounding baked. I had down right limed my own feathers to paraphrase Chaucer. I then went to bed dejected. I had no dreams, but I felt like I was in bed for forever, and that the sun had exploded or something because the night was days long.

When I woke up, my hands were excruciatingly painful. I went to the doctor, and lied about what I'd done. They treated my hands of second degree burns, and I had them wrapped in bandages for the next week and a half. He said I was lucky not to get third degree burns and lose all sensation in my hands.

All in all, I'd say the trip was ambiguous. Mentally it was good, but the lasting pain made it kind of not worth it. I still wouldn't trade the experience for the world. It was a valuable experience. I now know not to underestimate the vaporizer.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 60209
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 26, 2009	Views: 5,587
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Cannabis (1) : Difficult Experiences (5), General (1), Various (28)